Ima4nic8or:It depends on the kids, it depends on the parents, yadda yadda. They certainly can be distracting but you can avoid the worst of it if you teach them at a young age that acting up in the car will not be tolerated. I cant count the number of times my wife or I pulled off the road to discipline our kids. If you just keep rolling, not wanting to lose 5 minutes by stopping, then you will be dealing with the distracting behaviors forever.

It also depends on the driver. As a joke, I did one of those distracted driving classes where they set up a cone course and you're supposed to see how you do with a cell phone vs. without one. I aced it both times (0 penalty points). AutoX and an SCCA license I suppose doesn't hurt, but I can't, for the life of me, understand what people are talking about when they say texting is as dangerous as driving drunk.

Guess that's why I like it in Ohio ... it's illegal, but only as a secondary offense, so whatever.

Elmo Jones:eaglepuss: Sounds like my Mom. Luckily, I inherited it and use it on children who kick my seat on planes.

I save it for the "parents." Those useless f*cks.

You make a good point there. I may reconsider my tactic. Gotta look out for those kids who don't take their parents seriously in the first place, tho. Those parents have already checked out and my seat will keep being kicked.

meanmutton:DoctorCal: You farkers with babies, don't listen to this crap. You're definitely fine driving with your offspring. Just get that idea of flying with them instead right out of your heads.

The biggest problem with flying is that the parents do it wrong. If your kid is well rested, well fed, and entertained -- they'll be fine. It's the idiots who think that they'll take the late night flights or wake the kid up early in the morning or skip a nap which are the problems. Keep a stash of food and toys plus your Kindle Fire or iPad and the kids are going to be fine.

Make sure to bring enough entertainment. The only time I've had kid problems on a plane involved a kid that the parents brought next to nothing in the way of entertainment for. For a 12-hour trans-pacific flight.

I've heard a few babies cry on descent but it's never been a big deal.

Loren:meanmutton: DoctorCal: You farkers with babies, don't listen to this crap. You're definitely fine driving with your offspring. Just get that idea of flying with them instead right out of your heads.

The biggest problem with flying is that the parents do it wrong. If your kid is well rested, well fed, and entertained -- they'll be fine. It's the idiots who think that they'll take the late night flights or wake the kid up early in the morning or skip a nap which are the problems. Keep a stash of food and toys plus your Kindle Fire or iPad and the kids are going to be fine.

Make sure to bring enough entertainment. The only time I've had kid problems on a plane involved a kid that the parents brought next to nothing in the way of entertainment for. For a 12-hour trans-pacific flight.

I've heard a few babies cry on descent but it's never been a big deal.

12 hour overseas flight? Yeah, you best have a ton of stuff for the kids.

So school buses, which generally carry some 40 odd students on average (can be much more), but have a safety record far beyond that of both student and parent drivers (including when they drive kids) means.... what exactly in terms of this study?

We once had a lady claim that she missed our stop sign (the one that goes out on the side of the bus when you hit your reds) because she was distracted by the 2 or 3 kids in her car. The driver who's reds she ran had about 35-40 kids in her bus at the time.

rewind2846:And this points up the immense failure of the assholes who just can't shut their motherf*cking yaps and drive, as if yammering on a cellphone to their f*cking girlfriend is the most important thing in the universe RIGHT NOW.

Here's a hint: as much as some people might think otherwise, children are human beings, or at least on their way to being so. It is sometimes necessary to take them places with your car, preferably on the inside since the police and CPS may have issues with tying them to the roof. They may make noise. That is their job. You will hear that noise. That is your curse.

There is no excuse for driving while talking or texting. None. Whatever you have to jack your jaw about can WAIT./why do these morons try like hell to come up with excuses like this/

No excuse for driving while talking? Do you have a dead circuit in your brain? Don't try walking and chewing gum. You'd probably choke lol

Driving by far the most dangerous thing most people ever do... Not that you could tell from how cavalier some drivers are. I'm kind of amazed it works at all. Totally want a google car, or at least that british automatic car system that can drive a route you have been down at least once before at least. My take is be super careful driving and don't worry about other risks in life much at all. Statistically you will be ahead.

So school buses, which generally carry some 40 odd students on average (can be much more), but have a safety record far beyond that of both student and parent drivers (including when they drive kids) means.... what exactly in terms of this study?

We once had a lady claim that she missed our stop sign (the one that goes out on the side of the bus when you hit your reds) because she was distracted by the 2 or 3 kids in her car. The driver who's reds she ran had about 35-40 kids in her bus at the time.

Eh, I can believe it (though texting while driving and kids being annoying, though both are distractions, it's kinda apples and oranges to compare the two, IMHO). My 3 1/2 yr old doesn't really act up in the car, but he's at an age right now where he just NEVER. STOPS. TALKING!

He has to make a comment or ask a question about literally everything we see (What's that guy doing? Is that a garbage truck? Some dogs are brown! It's not raining out! My shoes are blue! - literally a constant stream of mostly non-sequiturs, it's unbelievable), which we could just tune out if he didn't repeat everything he said louder and louder until he gets some sort of response or acknowledgement. Sometimes it's funny and cute but a lot of the time I wish he would just STFU for 5 minutes.

Luckily my husband is a very focused driver and generally doesn't let it effect him too much (I don't drive because I can't focus for shiat even without a distracting child in the car).

/kid is usually quiet and calm when we take public transportation, thankfully.

DoctorCal:Hebalo: DoctorCal: meanmutton: If your kid is well rested, well fed, and entertained -- they'll be fine.

Bullshiat. Stop spreading misinformation. The pressure changes will upset the best rested and fed baby. It's gonna scream and cry for 30% of the flight.

Don't. Fly. With. Babies. Dammit.

This must be the semi-monthly thread where 20 somethings with no clue, and 30 somethings who think they're the smartest people in the room judge people with real lives.

I know the expectation is just that a thread like this is going to have people spewing child hate, to the extent that Poe's law comes into play, but that isn't what this is.

In the last 18 months, I've flown around 40 flight "segments", and a majority of them have had at least one, sometimes multiple, crying infants on them. During one stretch, it felt like a game, like they were chasing me - being seated nearer and nearer to me. I had one *directly behind* me, actually kicking my seat during a screaming fit, and I completely ignored it. (At the end of the flight, the embarrassed mother apologized, and I reassured her that I had been fairly oblivious to whatever she was so sorry for.)

The kicker was when I was boarding a return trans-Atlantic flight.

I had arranged six weeks prior to the flight to be seated with access to an electrical outlet for a medical device. AS I BOARDED THE AIRCRAFT I was informed that I had been reassigned "to keep a family together". As I walked past my former seat, I saw that there was an infant in it. *sigh* They won the game, finally making a direct hit - actually taking my seat.

Since then, the screaming babies have continued.

Totally This.I remember a 13-hour flight to New Zealand for film crew work. Sat between two teen mom types with obviously over-aged 'lap children' kicking, screaming, drooling, and grabbing my computer relentlessly. The under-aged brood cows were clearly too mommy-zombified to even notice. Unfortunately, the kids were way too old to flush through the space toilet.

So school buses, which generally carry some 40 odd students on average (can be much more), but have a safety record far beyond that of both student and parent drivers (including when they drive kids) means.... what exactly in terms of this study?

We once had a lady claim that she missed our stop sign (the one that goes out on the side of the bus when you hit your reds) because she was distracted by the 2 or 3 kids in her car. The driver who's reds she ran had about 35-40 kids in her bus at the time.

A bus driver's job is limited to driving the bus.A parent's job includes a lot more than driving the vehicle.

As a child I never had any interaction with the bus driver, but I would frequently interact with my parents while they were driving.

No it isn't. I can't speak for your district, but bus drivers are also responsible for "student management" on the bus. They have to be, otherwise buses would be hell for students riding home with the bullying/teasing that would go on, and the interior would be quickly destroyed.

I'm constantly checking on my students (which is policy in my district anyway), telling them to stop doing stuff they shouldn't be, or answering questions from them. I've had some students on routes that will sit and talk with you until they get off the bus. It's quite fun actually!

I interact with them as a whole (not individually of course, since that would be impossible given the number of students) easily as much (if not more due to the amount of students) as I interact with my son in the car.

So school buses, which generally carry some 40 odd students on average (can be much more), but have a safety record far beyond that of both student and parent drivers (including when they drive kids) means.... what exactly in terms of this study?

We once had a lady claim that she missed our stop sign (the one that goes out on the side of the bus when you hit your reds) because she was distracted by the 2 or 3 kids in her car. The driver who's reds she ran had about 35-40 kids in her bus at the time.

A bus driver's job is limited to driving the bus.A parent's job includes a lot more than driving the vehicle.

As a child I never had any interaction with the bus driver, but I would frequently interact with my parents while they were driving.

No it isn't. I can't speak for your district, but bus drivers are also responsible for "student management" on the bus. They have to be, otherwise buses would be hell for students riding home with the bullying/teasing that would go on, and the interior would be quickly destroyed.

I'm constantly checking on my students (which is policy in my district anyway), telling them to stop doing stuff they shouldn't be, or answering questions from them. I've had some students on routes that will sit and talk with you until they get off the bus. It's quite fun actually!

I interact with them as a whole (not individually of course, since that would be impossible given the number of students) easily as much (if not more due to the amount of students) as I interact with my son in the car.

Pretty much every driver in my district does the same.

Hate to break it to you, but the rear seats on the bus I rode in high school was where the hanky panky went on ... haha. "Student management" ... is that what their calling it these days. It was more like Lord of the Flies. The students ran the bus and the bus driver merely has the pleasure of being out route ... which might be why we had 14 different drivers my senior year .... LOL.